1. Introduction 2. Radial velocities 3. Astrometry 4. Timing 5. Microlensing 6. Transits 7. Imaging 8. Host stars 9. Brown dwarfs and free-floating planets 10. Formation and evolution 11. Interiors and atmospheres 12. The Solar System Appendixes References Index.

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The Exoplanet Handbook

Acknowledgements Foreword Introduction I BACKGROUND Long-term astrophysical processes Evolution theory and the future of humanity Millenial tendencies in responses to apocalyptic threats Cognitive biases potentially affecting judgement of global risks Observation selection effects and global catastrophic risks Systems-based risk analysis Catastrophes and insurance Public policy towards catastrophe II RISKS FROM NATURE Super-volcanism and other geophysical processes of catastrophic import Hazards from comets and asteroids Influence of Supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, solar flares, and cosmic rays on the terrestrial environment III RISKS FROM UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES Climate change and global risk Plagues and pandemics: past, present, and future Artificial Intelligence as a positive and negative factor in global risk Big troubles, imagined and real IV RISKS FROM HOSTILE ACTS Catastrophe, social collapse, and and human extinction The continuing threat of nuclear war Catastrophic nuclear terrorism: a preventable peril Biotechnology and biosecurity Nanotechnology as global catastrophic risk The totalitarian threat Author's biographies Index

Global Catastrophic Risks

Relativistic Cosmology: The standard model and extensions

* Introduction: The Giant and the Cow * The Expansion of the Universe * The Cosmic Microwave Radiation Background * Recipe for a Hot Universe * The First Three Minutes * A Historical Diversion * The First One-Hundredth Second * Epilogue: The Project Ahead * Tables * Properties of Some Elementary Particles * Properties of Some Kinds of Radiation * Glossary * Mathematical Supplement * Afterword: Cosmology Since 1977

The first three minutes. A modern view of the origin of the universe

[Shortened abstract:] In this thesis we investigate a solution to the `problem of time' in canonical quantum gravity by splitting spacetime into surfaces of constant mean curvature parameterised by York time. We argue that there are reasons to consider York time a viable candidate for a physically meaningful notion of time. We investigate a number York-time Hamiltonian-reduced cosmological models and explore some technical aspects, such as the non-canonical Poisson structure. We develop York-time Hamiltonian-reduced cosmological perturbation theory by solving the Hamiltonian constraint perturbatively around a homogeneous background for the physical (non-vanishing) Hamiltonian that is the momentum conjugate to the York time parameter. We proceed to canonically quantise the cosmological models and the perturbation theory and discuss a number of conceptual and technical points, such as volume eigenfunctions and the absence of a momentum representation due to the non-standard commutator structure. We propose an alternative, wavefunction-free method of quantisation based on an ensemble of trajectories and a dynamical configuration-space geometry and discuss its application to gravity. We conclude by placing the York-time theories explored in this thesis in the wider context of a search for a satisfactory theory of quantum gravity.

Gravitation and cosmology with York time

In this critical notice we argue against William Craig's recent attempt to reconcile presentism (roughly, the view that only the present is real) with relativity theory. Craig's defense of his position boils down to endorsing a neo-Lorentzian interpretation of special relativity. We contend that his reconstruction of Lorentz's theory and its historical development is fatally flawed and that his arguments for reviving this theory fail on many counts.

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Presentism and relativity

1. Background and Assumptions 2. Persistence, Location and Multilocation in Spacetime 3. Classical and Relativistic Spacetime 4. Persisting Objects in Classical Spacetime 5. Persisting Objects in Minkowski Spacetime 6. Coexistence in Spacetime 7. Strange Coexistence? 8. Shapes and Other Arrangements in Minkowski Spacetime References

Persistence and Spacetime

This Resource Letter provides a guide to the literature on the anthropic principle. The letter E after an item indicates elementary level or material of general interest to persons becoming informed in the field. The letter I, for intermediate level, indicates material of somewhat more specialized nature. The annotation A indicates rather specialized or advanced material.

Resource Letter AP‐1: The anthropic principle

I examine the issue of persistence over time in thecontext of the special theory of relativity (SR). Thefour-dimensional ontology of perduring objects isclearly favored by SR. But it is a different questionif and to what extent this ontology is required, andthe rival endurantist ontology ruled out, by thistheory. In addressing this question, I take theessential idea of endurantism, that objects are whollypresent at single moments of time, and argue that itcommits one to unacceptable conclusions regardingcoexistence, in the context of SR. I then propose anddiscuss a plausible account of coexistence forperduring objects, which is free of these defects. This leaves the endurantist room for some maneuvers. I consider them and show that they do not really helpthe endurantist out. She can accommodate the notionof coexistence in the relativistic framework only atthe cost of renouncing central endurantist intuitions.

Yuri Balashov

Papers

Presentism and relativity

Persistence and Spacetime

Resource Letter AP‐1: The anthropic principle

Enduring and perduring objects in Minkowski space-time

Uniformitarianism in cosmology: Background and philosophical implications of the steady-state theory